AuthorTopic: Equipment and liability insurance (Read 2796 times)

Hi All, I have equipment insurance through NANPA, but finding a policy that includes liability is a problem. I live in one of the safest areas of Metro Boston, but Allstate just informed me that "due to the severe weather hazards in your area, population, and current CAT guidelines we cannot provide you with a quote at this time." What?! Whatever. Anyone know of another route I can go?

While you're at it, check with PPA (Professional Photgraphers of America). We're out of it now that we retired, but the insurance through them was stellar. We had a fair number of equipment claims over 20 years and always came away really happy. We carried their liability insurance for both our studio and location shooting with coverage of $2 million per person per incident, and as I recall it was quite reasonable. Only thing missing was E&O, but we were able to find that elsewhere.

PPA has two insurance programs - free insurance for all members but it does not cover much due to high deductibles, and paid insurance through the same company. If you go this route, buy a paid policy.

The NANPA coverage is a little more flexible in terms of equipment coverage, adds during the year, etc.

I'm sure there are others available. The big things are to have an itemized list, use values based on what it is really worth used - not new, and to understand deductibles for claims and any additional deductibles for drops. Also check on how values are set - depreciated value or replacement value. I update my values based on KEH.com so they are realistic replacement costs.

Sounds like your talking about replacement coverage in lieu of stated value. With replacement the underwriter will only pay you for what they can replace your equipment for. Stated value you insure it for a dollar of a million pay the premium on the insured value and that's the payout.Replacement insurance with a high deductible is only really going to help in a total loss. So a 10,000.00 deductible to get the premium down usually wouldn't be worth a claim for loos old one lens since the deductible wouldn't be met.Also read very carefully the exclusions in small print, ex insurance void if stolen while not on your person.

Logged

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times - "Bruce Lee"

Most of our claims through PPA's add-on policy were for repairs, with replacement only when evaluation showed the gear was beyond repair. Dunno if it's the same now, but up until we retired YOU placed the value on each piece of equipment at the time you bought the policy, whether you wanted new value or used value. And paid accordingly. We always went to KEH for used values, but knew folks who paid for new.

Gotta add that in all those years of repairing or replacing, we never once reached for the checkbook. Submit the repair or replacement bill, and we got reimbursed. What could be simpler or in fact more honest on the part of their carrier?

No deductibles? I have that on my personal policy, but my professional equipment policy carries a $250 deductible per item. The PPA free coverage had a $250 deductible for the first claim of the year, $500 for the second claim, and $750 for the third claim plus an additional $250 deductible on drops. I dropped a 24-70 f/2.8 lens and the repair was $425 - cheaper than my deductibles. The free policy was also designed to insure a maximum of depreciated value on the lens based on the age. So a 5 year old lens may have a market value of $1000, but might only carry maximum coverage of $400. The paid policy covered up to replacement value.

Either way small claims are not practical. If you have too many small claims, your policy will get dropped. You have to strike a balance of whether its worth making a claim.

It's interesting that over the past few years repair costs have increased at Nikon and Canon. LensRentals.com has a recent article about increasing cost of repairs. A few years ago a typical repair was $325-400. Now the same repairs are likely to run $600 or more which changes the economics on filing claims, deductibles, etc.

"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent moving furniture." Arnold Newman“Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” William Faulkner

Hi All, I have equipment insurance through NANPA, but finding a policy that includes liability is a problem. I live in one of the safest areas of Metro Boston, but Allstate just informed me that "due to the severe weather hazards in your area, population, and current CAT guidelines we cannot provide you with a quote at this time." What?! Whatever. Anyone know of another route I can go?

Thanks,Merrill

Package Choice through Hill and Usher has been great. Full replacement value on equipment and some good liability. We do more kinds of work than the average photo studio so we were able to craft a liability that covered the extra work.